From Europe News:
'Swedish society forces 'immigrants' to emigrate'
The Local 29 November 2011
Swedish society is failing its "immigrants", many of whom, such as football star Zlatan Ibrahimovic, are forced to look elsewhere to build successful careers, social commentator and author Tove Lifvendahl argues"I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic” - this is no way to express oneself in Sweden, if you are aware of the silent, strict codes in order to be accepted (editor's note: in reference to the title of the autobiography of the Sweden and Milan star).
I was once told how the former US ambassador to Sweden Lyndon Olson paid a visit to a daycare a couple of days after arriving in Sweden. He was baffled to see how the children, dressed up as pieces of pie in papier-maché hats, sang that they were part of the pie.
"This would never happen in America! There they would say ‘I am pie!”
Swedes possess, aside from their reputation as the Scandinavian Japanese (quiet, polite, punctual, conflict-shy, nature-lovers) a characteristic which ethnologists continually return to: Sweden is the country where similarity is appreciated more than anywhere else.
This peculiarity causes us trouble when faced with that which constitutes the contrast to similarity: difference. People who differ - for example, immigrants, emigrants, returning Swedes, odd personalities, those with high ambitions or unwillingness to adapt to the social regulations - are at high risk of being met with negative attitudes.Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Lagercrantz’s readable book is not primarily about Sweden - even if some who have read it, amazingly enough, seemed to have missed at least ten years of debate on integration filled with stories of how social exclusion appears to many, naively treating this part of the book as "dynamite". Wake up, like. (...)
Posted November 29th, 2011 by pk
'Swedish society forces 'immigrants' to emigrate'
The Local 29 November 2011
Swedish society is failing its "immigrants", many of whom, such as football star Zlatan Ibrahimovic, are forced to look elsewhere to build successful careers, social commentator and author Tove Lifvendahl argues"I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic” - this is no way to express oneself in Sweden, if you are aware of the silent, strict codes in order to be accepted (editor's note: in reference to the title of the autobiography of the Sweden and Milan star).
I was once told how the former US ambassador to Sweden Lyndon Olson paid a visit to a daycare a couple of days after arriving in Sweden. He was baffled to see how the children, dressed up as pieces of pie in papier-maché hats, sang that they were part of the pie.
"This would never happen in America! There they would say ‘I am pie!”
Swedes possess, aside from their reputation as the Scandinavian Japanese (quiet, polite, punctual, conflict-shy, nature-lovers) a characteristic which ethnologists continually return to: Sweden is the country where similarity is appreciated more than anywhere else.
This peculiarity causes us trouble when faced with that which constitutes the contrast to similarity: difference. People who differ - for example, immigrants, emigrants, returning Swedes, odd personalities, those with high ambitions or unwillingness to adapt to the social regulations - are at high risk of being met with negative attitudes.Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Lagercrantz’s readable book is not primarily about Sweden - even if some who have read it, amazingly enough, seemed to have missed at least ten years of debate on integration filled with stories of how social exclusion appears to many, naively treating this part of the book as "dynamite". Wake up, like. (...)
Posted November 29th, 2011 by pk
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